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Well,
A couple of weeks back, the cousins planned a surprise Birthday party for Fahmi. His missus, Fuzzy, had orchestrated everything and got us all in on the action.

Since we sort of imposed our way to an invite to their crib, we decided to make it a potluck party, where everyone brings a dish or two, while Fuzzy ordered pizza for the whole clan.

The plan was to wait until Fahmi goes off for his isha’ prayers at the nearby mosque, before we all headed up to their crib, to hide away in one of their rooms, until he comes back.

But, unfortunately, as all surprise party tends to go, someone (or in this case a few people) will sort of ruin the surprise.

In our family, it seems to be a running thing that those nearest to the venue, would be inexplicably late. Honestly!

Their abode is in the east, and 90% of the Ummi Enot (my maternal grandmother) clan resides in the east. While, my brother and I (along with our parents, of course), are in the north, but yet, somehow, le brother and I managed to head to the east, pick up a couple of our eastsider cousins, and then head deeper into the east, to pick up the cake, and then promptly, made our way to the party venue, at the stipulated time (which was agreed upon by ALL the people from the east!).

But with four of us already at their place, a couple more cousins (shout out to eez n jhan!) made it just in time to hide out in the dark room, waiting to spring a surprise on Fahmi, when he gets home.

Meanwhile, the other 80% of the Eastsiders were… uhm… (might I say, dumb, without meaning any harm?) a little too obvious in hiding out in their cars in the basement parking of the place, where the birthday boy was entering, to go park his car in.

Without a doubt, the birthday boy saw their cars but he feigned ignorance, when he went up to what he thought was his empty- save for his wife- apartment.

After settling on the couch, the wifey texted us to come out and surprise him, to which, my dear brother (bless his heart), took it upon himself to go all tactical, military stealth mode, and lead us to literally “spring” a surprise on him.

Birthday boy was, to our amusement, mighty surprised, that he hid his face in his wife’s arms! Were we an excited bunch when that happened! Hahahahahahah! We have a video of the actual surprise, but unfortunately omertà prohibits me from sharing it. =p

Guess, it was a successful surprise, nonetheless!

The rest proceeded to come up to the apartment and, slowly, stories of how each of us had a hand to play in ruining the surprise, unfolded.

We proceeded to prepare the food that we each brought, while waiting for the pizza to get delivered… I broke a vase right of the bat. I am really sorry, Fuzzy! I was trying to be helpful but ended up being a nuisance. Hehehehehehehehehe.

Anyhoos, heaps of pictures coming up!

This was the spread of food we had, BEFORE the pizza arrived.

I contributed the fried fishball skewers and marble cake in the top left hand corner, while main beetch did her famous sambosas, and the Keswi and Corn Pudding at the top of the picture was courtesy of Hanim. Mas brought the Indian Rojak and those Grapes were balance from le main beetch and I’s, cheese platter (pictured below).Without giving too much of a cultural shock to le family, we started with milder cheeses in the form of cheddar (I KNOW!) and brie… Thank you to the lady of the home for the mad awesome cheese board… =D Need to invest in my own, if I want to actually start proper cheese board arrangements in the future…

Here’s a picture of the ladies sans Hanim. Le main beetch and I are still busy with our cheese board, as you can tell.

A selfie to try and get the early birds in on one shot but as usual, the guys (excluding le overly enthusiastic brother), would never actually entertain our selfie-ness… -_-

When the pizza came, everyone was quick to get a plate and get in on the action. By then, it was already close to 930pm and, everyone had missed dinner on account of trying to make the party.

It is always nice to catch up with the family over food. We had a good catch up of what’s been happening with the world, with the family, and also made some jokes about our “failed” surprise. We also decided on some future plans that should happen soon. (Cousins’ Paintball… Fug Yeah!!!)

Our lovely hosts… The Birthday Boy and the awesome wifey, with the kick ass Ice Cream Cake. Mad delicious too! Wish I wasn’t full by then, I could have helped myself to a second helping of cake! Hmpppppph… Dreaming of that Sticky Chewy Chocolate Cake!

After that, we began the games. And, it was Cranium up first. It was a Girls vs Boys affair, and well, as expected, us ladies wiped the board clean with them boys, and their foolishness. Girls Rule!!!

It was nice as then, we moved on to play Heads Up with half of the room vs the other half. Well if we stuck to the rules, we might actually have had a definitive idea of who won, but since we did not, we cannot tell for sure.

Oh well…

Anyhoos, it is in gatherings like these that I feel truly happy to have been born into this family. With all our fights, arguments, and insults, we really are what family is really all about. When the going gets tough, I know that it is in these people that I can safely share my thoughts and ideas, and it is they, who will be there to provide a solution and an answer.Well then, that was that. Would like to take this opportunity to wish Fahmi a blessed birthday, once again and may our family ukhuwah remain as strong now, and forever, inshallah. =)

Well, yesterday was a very exciting end to the long work week. Met up with my two girlfriends of 17 years for a Murtabak feast. It was a long overdue meet up and the whole night felt like we never lost touch for a bit… Laughters were aplenty and it felt like we were giggling school girls again… So, we went all out with our feast… Ordered Briyani on top of the 2 large murtabak and 1 small one…

I like my dhal while they fancied their murtabak dipped in curry…

The delicious Murtabak that was quick to disappear…

The briyani rice was fragrant and the lamb was perfectly spiced, without being too overpowering.

Tried the Sardine Briyani and wasn’t a fan… Never liked Sardine if it wasn’t prepared by my mom or not in an epok-epok…

Ordered a second round of Murtabak, but accidentally got lamb instead of beef… Not exactly happy about the mistake but oh wells… Waste not, want not… Next time I have murtabak, I’ll remember that I want Beef Murtabak only… Even though beef is not exactly my favourite meat, outside of steak…

Anyhoos, we decided to take a walk along the streets around Sultan Masjid, and the sight of the mosque in the evening was truly a sight to behold… Majestic would be an understatement… We stood on Bussorah street just staring up at the mosque in awe, while we marveled at its simplistic, yet detailed, architecture…

We ended the night with a mandatory stop at the Sarbat stall for a cup of Teh Halia and Teh Tarik, to cap the night off… It was an awesome night of catch up and discovering the city we had severely taken for granted…